Europe and the Jaguar
Object Details
- Gallery Label
- A train runs through a cityscape of vibrant pink and blue, chugging past an array of mysterious figures that populate the night sky. Below, a Mesoamerican-looking jaguar with blocky, stylized features holds hands with a nude woman. Their joined arms stretch above a dapper man smoking beneath them.
- Carlos Almaraz uses these cryptic characters to suggest larger ideas and to reflect on the complex relationship between the cultures of Mexico, where he was born, and the United States, where he moved as a child. Here, symbols of ancient America, modern Europe, and the contemporary United States are joined. Untethered to a specific time and place, Almaraz's figures frolic across a noirish and dreamlike urban landscape.
- Credit Line
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of The Friends of the Corcoran)
- Data Source
- Smithsonian American Art Museum
- Date
- 1982
- Object number
- 2020.20.7
- Artist
- Carlos Almaraz, born Mexico City, Mexico 1941-died Los Angeles, CA 1989
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Type
- Painting
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- unframed: 72 × 72 in. (182.9 × 182.9 cm)
- See more items in
- Smithsonian American Art Museum Collection
- Department
- Painting and Sculpture
- On View
- Smithsonian American Art Museum, 3rd Floor, East Wing
- Topic
- Figure group
- Performing arts
- Record ID
- saam_2020.20.7
